this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

and the US had been arming theocratic extremist militias in the region to prevent a socialist turn of the country.

What? You don't even know how this started?

Look for Amin's assassination and such.

USSR didn't like their puppet socialist dictatorship (which already existed in Afghanistan, so I don't get which "socialist turn" you are talking about), so they tried to change its leadership by the simplest way - a company of paratroopers storming the presidential palace.

Then all hell broke loose in Afghanistan between various factions (because old dictator is still usually seen as more legitimate than new obvious puppet government simply installed by force) and then Soviet troops entered Afghanistan to help pro-Soviet socialist militias against anti-Soviet socialist militias. Mojaheds were socialist, if you didn't know that.

theocratic extremist militias

Came to relevance later as Pakistani influence, though of course USA tried to strengthen them too.

The USSR fought these zealot warlords, not the country as a whole, the government at the time was pro-soviet.

The government at that time didn't practically exist, parts of Afghani military did, which, yes, were USSR's allies.

not the country as a whole,

Killing a million civilians in process.

You’re right, Tibetan people would be so much better off as literal serfs bound to the land they worked for the local aristocrats, as it happened up until the 50s

Oh, so they brought those savages civilization, is that your case for China here?

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What? You don’t even know how this started?

I do. And funnily enough, the US state apparatus also knows this. I quote from an article:

In 1996, eight years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Robert Gates revealed in his memoirs that the US government actually began funding the Mujahedin in July 1979, “six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.”

In a 1998 interview with the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that, with this covert aid to the Mujahedin, the US government “knowingly increased the probability” that the Soviets would invade Afghanistan. Brzezinski enthusiastically defended this decision, saying: “That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap…We now [had] the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’”

Now I'll answer your point again about China

Oh, so they brought those savages civilization, is that your case for China here?

Again, there's no such thing as savages or civilization, it's a matter of the system in which people happen to live, you may want to paint it as colonialism but I've already proven first that you don't know what that word means, and secondly that it's not the case. China liberated Tibetan serfs from their feudal serfdom, no savages, no civilizing.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I know they were funding them. But USSR leadership's decision to depose Amin was not in any direct way connected to this.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Way to hurt your argument, the guy has said all kinds of things.

Not that he's wrong, just what these all people said post factum is not so valuable. Of course they were trying to stir up shit in Afghanistan, it's in a strategic location and a traditional point of contention since Russian Empire and British Empire.

But their attempts could have continued for another 10 or 20 years with limited success.

Instead the Politburo decided to shoot up the gas station just for the fun of it. Apparently they were feeling pressure from all sides. Apparently they felt it was a good idea to show how Soviet military is still a superpower's military.

So they relieved that pressure by USSR imploding and have shown that Soviet military is indeed a superpower's military - well-conserved since end of WWII though.

At least many in a generation went there and learned how to actually fight wars, and Afghanistan veterans are the reason Armenians won the first NK war, for example. (When people in Armenia say it was all in vain because of the relatively recent wars - I wonder what they are comparing it with, considering that Soviet and Azeri soldiers were "cleaning out" Armenian villages on Armenian SSR's territory, killing and abusing civilians, in the beginning of that war. The world today is better for Armenians because they fought back then, not worse.)